Articles on the internet are so often written in the imperative mood. Read more diverse literature, and read it now! Every day I find new lists of LGBT literature, Black literature, Latinx literature, LGBT Y.A. audiobooks… the list goes on.
Do I seek diversity in reading? No, I do not. This is not to say I do not read so-called “diverse” books. But the “diverse” literature comes into my life by serendipity. I simply pick up a book at a bookstore and start reading.
I am currently reading Crooked Hallelujah, a charming, poignant first novel by Kelli Jo Ford, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. It is certainly the most original debut novel I’ve read this year. I love Ford’s portraits of three generations of Cherokee women, Lula, who suffers from epilepsy and belongs to a fundamentalist church, her rebellious daughter Justine, a single mother who works two jobs, and her daughter Reney, who receives mixed messages by observing her mother’s rocky relationships. Ford’s style takes me back to the spare, less padded fiction of the ’90s: I am simultaneously reminded of Susan Power and Elizabeth Tallent.
I also read and loved Louise Erdrich’s breathtaking new novel, The Night Watchman, which is one of her best. And I enjoyed Elizabeth Thomas’s Catherine House, which turned out to be more SF than literary fiction, very light. I had no idea Thomas was Black until after I wrote the review, because I read an e-galley. And then I realized with chagrin that I would have given the book a better review if I’d known the author was Black. And that’s not right, either.
Here is a diverse book on my TBR: Natalie Diaz’s new poetry collection, Postcolonial Love Poem. According to the Guardian, the author “identifies as queer, Mojave, Latinx, and an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian tribe.” That ticks all the boxes. But you know, I just want to read it.
Publishers Weekly recently published an article, “Diversity in Publishing in the Age of Black Lives Matter.” It begins, “Since the killing of George Floyd in late May, the book publishing industry, overwhelmingly white at every level, seems to have reached a period of reckoning about its own history of exclusionary hiring practices.”
I’m not ticking boxes, but someone has to do it, and publishers always need good people. But there are so many issues we women need to support: abortion rights, voting rights, women’s rights, equal pay for equal work, health care insurance….
We all have our issues, and not everyone is on the same page at the same time.
But rock on! We always need new voices.
